Experimental Game Design

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Appropriation show and tell

by | Nov 18, 2019 | ,

  I decided to share a meme (at least appropriate for class) that was quite directly an example of appropriation mixing in media from the Spiderman Franchise. The video involved mixing in a few moments from Spiderman 2 movie, taking the famous “Funiculì, Funiculà” which was used in the Spiderman 2 video game when delivering pizzas in the game as a mission. The version of Funiculì, Funiculà that was used was played with an accordion.  It became a very popular meme many years for how derpy the song sounds while played through this instrument. I shall provide the links for each source. I feel memes are the best way to spread information to communicate among one another and by using material we can all relate to or know the references of we can do just that.  

The Main video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpvT-Fciu-4

Funiculì, Funiculà from spiderman 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czTksCF6X8Y

JJJ’s Laugh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFJ6UZ0SkYY

Pizza Time!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRgdA9_FsXM

Pranav Gopan – Artwork #3 News in Runescape

by | Nov 13, 2019 | , ,

Something that has always fascinated me is bringing the real world into the digital space. Thanks to the many MMORPGs out there, people can communicate via text or voice chat in different game worlds. Some use communication for strictly game purposes, such as completing tasks or missions. Others enjoy the social aspect of it. In worlds meant for slaying dragons and collecting jewels, you may find parties with players dancing and talking leisurely with one another. And of course, there are those who don’t use communication at all. For my project, I wanted to explore an aspect of communication that isn’t frequently used in video games. In the real world, we learn about what happens outside our homes via the news. It’s important to stay updated, as what happens outside can have a direct impact on our own lives. When we play video games, we immerse ourselves in the game world. Despite the joy that comes, it’s important to stay grounded from time to time.

I created a score that involves the following steps.

  1. Choose an MMORPG.
  2. Enter a game world with a decent amount of players.
  3. Customize your avatar so that it is bright and noticeable.
  4. Open a web browser and load different news sites and fact pages.
  5. Go back to the game world and find other players.
  6. Type out different news headlines and facts around them.
  7. Try to relate the topics to what is happening in the game world.
  8. Wait for a response.

As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to find a way to bring the real world into the digital. This score was how I did so. The MMORPG that I chose was Runescape. For an hour, I traveled to different parts of the game world and encountered various people. My main goal was to spark reactions from other players and possibly carry out conversations. At first, I would stand next to players and type out random news headlines. For example, one headline was, “Trump says Ukraine whistleblower must testify, blasts offer of written answers”. However, I did not get many reactions when I did so. Most people would walk away or not reply at all. After some time, I decided to try a different approach. There is a place in the game world with many cows and I found one player slaying them. I began searching for cow facts on my browser and typed them out on Runescape. After saying, “A cow will chew about 50 times in a minute”, I received my first reply. The other player responded, “Nope”. I wanted to keep speaking, so I typed, “Cows have great senses”. The other player responded, “You can’t tell me what to do your not my moo”. For me, this was a win. Though the conversation was simple, I at least received a reply. I continued my journey to an in-game ore field, where I saw a few players mining. I took this as an opportunity to search for real-life facts about fracking. After describing fracking in the game world, one player replied, “Really? Didn’t know that”. I felt happy at this moment. Mainly, it was because someone learned something new through the score.

From what I observed through this experience, players don’t enjoy listening to the news in game worlds. However, when performing long mundane tasks, such as slaying cows or mining ore, players are interested in listening to relevant facts. I can understand seeing how these tasks take up a decent amount of time and can get pretty tiresome. Having someone there to surprise you with knowledge might make the experience a little better.

Link to gameplay:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Mprj5S0Txsr8PJQ9DjQhEu9I06CXQySm

Just Draw – Appropriation Game

by | Oct 22, 2019 | , ,

I originally intended for this game to be a single player experience, but after playtesting with an improvised multiplayer mode where each player would take a turn drawing, I realized that the multiplayer was the real source of fun for the game. There was a lot of emergent behavior I would never have seen in the single player game. The players began to play cooperatively and began helping each other out with their drawings. Some began to purposefully draw in a certain way as to help the other player with their next drawing. The game turned into this strange dialogue between the players as they were both helping each other turn the same thing into two different things. There were some other emergent behaviors that I didn’t expect for individual players. When I played the game, I drew very minimally to make the next drawing easier. Seeing others play, they added a lot more detail that I would’ve added. People became very attached to their drawings in a way that I didn’t necessarily intend. People overall seemed to want more control over their drawing, so I added the ability to move the camera and zoom in and out as well as undo drawings. 

 

For my appropriation game, the player is given a prompt to draw, which must be drawn by appropriating the previous player’s drawing. After the drawing is complete a new prompt is given to the next player. My original idea with this game was to somehow have the game mechanic be appropriation itself. In my pitch, the game mechanic was for the player to be able to explore their own creations that have been appropriated by the computer. I was inspired by a lot of the more theatrical Dada pieces, especially the earlier Zurich movement where the participation of the audience was a key part of the performance. In this game the player is key in the performance of appropriation. After making the game multiplayer, the form of appropriation transformed so that while the two players had the same object that they were appropriating, they were instructed to appropriate in two seemingly conflicting ways. With this game I saw the use of appropriation as a way to resolve these conflicts. When the players would need to turn a dog into a tree through only additional pencil strokes, there is an immediate conflict that arises. The message I wanted to send through this piece was that only through the act of appropriation by the player do they progress. Another interesting part of my game is scale. I was inspired by the use of scale as a tool for transformation such as the giant joystick or tiny hammer. I forced the player’s drawings to zoom out over time rather than just have them move along the screen.

Just Draw Zoom Out

Ball Painting Score

by | Oct 7, 2019 | ,

Take multiple Tennis balls and different color paint cans, put the canvas in the middle of the room. Give the artists multiple gloves to be able to pick up and roll the ball across the canvas of different colors.  If everyone is alright they may bounce the ball to each other assuming they dont mind getting paint on themselves. The idea originally came around when my friend and personal trainer Kevin Brewerton showed me a video of him doing art with his boxing gloves and punching the canvas with paint on his gloves.  I wanted to take a step further and try throwing a baseball or hitting a baseball against the paint however many things can go wrong so quickly with that. Baseballs can deflect and hit someone, not enough space to protect the whole area from getting splashed. I then thought about doing something similar with throwing a tennis ball between two people against the wall but there’s still the potential of breaking the canvas and also dealing with covering up as much ground so we won’t get paint everywhere.  

What is needed for the happening:

  • Tennis Balls (six for this Happening)
  • Tempura Paint (Blue, Orange, Red, Green)
  • Paper plates to hold the paints
  • Disposable Gloves to help handle the tennis balls
  • A giant Tarp to paint on and also prevent the ground or room to be painted on
  • MISSING: (19in x 24in Paper as the canvas)
    • Tarp became the new Canvas

The results of the Happening: Lack of preparation for the Happening resulted in many changes to the final presentation. Didn’t have a place to prepare for the project nor could I get the tarp that I wanted to stay on the wall. The solution to this was to lay the tarp on the ground and instead bounce the tennis balls covered in paint.  The results are shown here:

The tennis balls ended up soaking up the paint and not splashing as much as I wished there would be. I had fun with the idea and it would be a lot of fun to potentially take this idea and reserve a room, get a ball that will splash more, and have the liberty of chucking the balls at full force without worrying about damages.  I find this can be a fun way to relieve stress by doing physical while also making art through your own physical actions.

Appropriated Art Show and Tell

by | Oct 5, 2019 | , ,

For my show and tell, I chose to show Dumb Starbucks, a product of comedy show Nathan for You, where in the episode, a local coffee shop failing because of a nearby Starbucks calls in Nathan who suggests that they turn the coffee shop into parody art by branding itself as “Dumb Starbucks”. I chose this because I wanted to showcase both a different form of appropriation, parody, as well as showing the confusion over whether the act was a form of art. The Dumb Starbucks joke received international praise as a form of street art and it was rumored to be a creation of Banksy, but it’s interesting to see how people’s perspectives on whether something is art or not changes depending on the artist making it.

Elena Kosowski’s Example of Appropriation

by | Oct 1, 2019 | , ,

My example of appropriation is the song “Pixel Galaxy” by Snail’s House. I listen to Snail’s House often, and when I first heard this song I thought it sounded very familiar. After some research, I realized that this song uses samples and melodies from a Kirby song. As a huge fan of Kirby, learning this only made me love the song more. The Kirby song that it samples is called “Green Greens”

Artwork #4: Final – “Exquisite Frenemy”

by | Dec 15, 2018 | ,

My project was designed to try to get players to not always take things at first glance. It was inspired by how we generally one thing and assume something about a person, when that isn’t always the case.

 

Version #1:
This game went through several iterations. The first was a basic trial where each player drew a card that simply said “friend” or “enemy” and including a defining characteristic that was contrary to the title on the card. The player then had to draw a character of their own creation that included that characteristic, but could still convince viewers that it was either a friend or enemy, as dictated by the card. They would then show all the other players their drawing and those players would have to vote on whether they thought it was a friend or an enemy. For example, a player could draw a card that said “enemy: must be smiling”. The smile could then cause people to think it was a friend, when it’s actually an enemy.

The problem with this version was that it was too black and white, and while they had that one parameter, there were too many other things they could draw to counter it. It was too open.

 

Version #2:
This version was similar to the first one, except instead of just saying friend or enemy, the card would list a single trait, which either a friend could or couldn’t have that the enemy would have the opposite of. The problem with this was if someone drew a card that simply listed something they could not draw, and again it was too open ended.

 

Version #3:
The third and final version of this game is a mix of telephone and exquisite corpse. Players sit in a circle, and the first player draws a card that either says friend or enemy, that no one else gets to see. They then draw an attribute from a bag (shown below) and place it on a figure of a person (also shown below). These are all made of magnets, and attach to the person. They then pass the person and the bag to the next player, who tries to decide whether it’s a friend or an enemy, based on the placement of the item, and then proceed to draw another attribute and attach it, depending on whether they thing it’s a friend or an enemy. During this process, no talking is allowed, which 1.) helps aid the mystery of the game and 2.) recreates that atmosphere of silent judgement throughout a group of people. When the person gets to the last player, that player tries to guess whether it’s a friend or an enemy, at which point the first player will reveal the truth.

 

Notes:
In earlier tests, I allowed dialogue between players and it was interesting to hear their thought processes about sizing up a person and which factors stood out to them more so than others. A lot of it pointed to their face or things they were holding, which leads me to believe that those are the first traits we notice about a person. However, what their face looked like always had an internal story others might have always known, and what they were holding could greatly vary depending on the circumstance. I think this game succeeded at least in pointing out the nuances of first impressions, and caused me to think a little bit more about just how we examine and understand others.